Garbage Truck Party 5yr

Our kids have a great relationship with our garbage men. For the past 3 years, every Tuesday, my kids run to the front window to wave at the garbage men.  Since we live on a dead end street, we get honks and waves from them twice.  It is the highlight of the kids day.  So, of course, my son wanted a garbage truck birthday this year. It started with the invitations.  I got a picture with my son and the garbage men.  I explained what it was for.  They even asked if they could take it the next week after they washed the truck!  I put that picture along with a picture of my son in the recycle bin and sitting next to a glass recycle bin.  Behind the pictures I placed blue and green cardstock, since that is the color of our sanitation department.  On the front it read, Neither rain, nor sleet or snow can stop the garbage man...  The inside said, but a HOLIDAY can!  And we sure have one!  Join us for: Ryan 5th Garbage Truck Birthday.  I continued on with a collection date, collection time, collection site (which was at the family Dump), and our phone number under Billing/Inquiries.  On the back we had a garbage truck with the words Garbage IS my life printed n them.  All done with my computer.  They were a hit.  And yes, the garbage men were invited. For decorations, I printed some garbage trucks from clip art.  I enlarged them with an overhead and made garbage trucks out of blue and green posterboard.  I outlined them with black sharpie on both sides and put them on the windows.  I also made big grey trash cans and put black paper garbage bags sticking out of them and also bags leaning against them.  To top it off I printed off a few barking  dogs on vellumn paper and stuck them near the garbage cans.  Every bay window was decorated and could be seen from the outside and inside.  We also had blue and green streamers from the ceiling and grey tablecloths for the tables.  My son had a big green Tonka garbage truck and we used that for the centerpiece of the buffet table.  We stuck the adult plastic spoons, forks and knives in the dumper compartment on top and the kids utencils in the front garbage bin.  And of course there were blue and green napkins.  I also made a banner on the wall with pictures of my son in our garbage bins.  I also enlarged the clip art garbage trucks and trash cans and wrote Happy 5th birthday in Wordart on them and printed them out on card stock, cut them out and stuck them around in various places. When the little guests arrived the day of the party,  we had them making garbage with Play doh.  I had gotten an Oscar the Grouch garbage truck Play doh machine from E-bay for really cheap.  They made the best garbage they could and they voted on the best garbage.  The winner got a Play doh pen. Some of the adult guests dressed in garbage men gear with mascara dirt on their faces as well.   Next we ate.  Since we thought garbage men ate at fast food restraunts a lot, I had my brother dress up in his old Arby's uniform and had him make BBQ burgers wrapped  in paper, put in carry out boxes (purchased at Cash and Carry) with some carrots and a bag of chips.  After he gave them their meal, they got to choose a pop.  The kids had pre-made kids meals with crimped PB&J sandwhiches, milk in plastic take out containers (brought home from various restraunts), a baggie of carrots and fruit gummies all in a brown paper bag.  They loved it! After eating we went outside for games.  We threw a hula hoop out in the grass and the kids had to throw garbage can lids into the hula hoop.  Then we had various plastic containers, cardboard and cans that we dumped in a pile.  The kids had to use two garbage can lids to scoop up the items and put them in the correct recycle bins a few feet away.  The last outside game was the garbage bag hop.  Basically a potato sack race.  We had put a trash can in the middle of the lawn and they had to circle the can and come back to the starting line.  The kids had a lot of fun and so the second race the parents joined in.  The last game was inside.  I had made cards on the computer using cardstock that read Ryan's Garbage Match Game.  They all had the same garbage truck on them.  On the other side I put pictures of things that are associated with garbage like soda cans, fish bones, newspaper etc.  We all sat around the game, kids and adults alike.  Everyone got a trash bag (little car sized ones) and a tag for them to write their name on it.  When someone got a match  they got a prize associated for that item.  For instance.  If they got soda can, they got a pop.  For garbage man, they got a Big Hunk candy bar.  For peelings they got some fruit.  Some were All Play cards.  That meant everyone got that prize.  For fish bones everyone got a little bag of fish crackers (found at Costco).  For newspaper everyone got a coloring book that the saniation department gave us for free.  It was a huge hit.  We had about 25 matches.   Then we did cake.  Since I had a picture of my son with the garbage men and truck, I almost went with a picture cake.  Most grocery stores will take a picture and put it on edible paper and place it on a cake.  But instead I make a 13 x 9 in cake and made a crushed Oreo road lined with Poky sticks.  Then 1/3 of the cake was a land fill.  It had crushed Oreos (for dirt), trail mix (for rocks and boulders), grey glitter flakes (that made it look like newspaper, which I bought in the cake department of a craft store), bone sprinkles (Scooby Doo sprinkles) and fish bone sprinkles.  It really looked like a dump!  I also had a plastic banner that was a perfect fit for over the road.  It said Happy Birthday on one side.  On the other side we put Ryan's Dump. We even had methane gas tubes (white candles) coming out of the land fill.   We had two garbage trucks.  One was a Hot Wheel which we placed on the cake road.  The other was a Thomas the Train Sanitation Truck.  So we built a road around the cake and a ramp that went right up to the road on the cake.  It was very fun. After the cake we did presents.  Many were wrapped in newspaper and some in trash bags.  After that we gave out gift baggies.  Trash bags, of course, complete with bottle bubbles (Dollar Store), soda can candy (Dollar Sstore), bottle liquid candy (Dollar Store), garbage can and trash trolley candy (online), a plastic trash can (ebay) filled with a t-shirt.  A local craft store had the t-shirts on sale.  So, we bought them and iron on trasfers.  We took the garbage truck with the Garbage IS my Life logo on it from the invitations,  and put that on the front of the t-shirts.  We put a little trash can on the sleeve and on the back was a recycle truck with I wanna be a Sanitation Engineer on them.  They were all in the colors of blue, green and grey.  They couldn't have come out cuter!  I may make one to match my son! Every one had a lot of fun and my son was VERY happy.  The garbage men did not come, but that next Tuesday they had a present for my son.  Very unexpected and they truly lasvished him.  We had such a fun day.  Can't wait to see what theme he picks out next year!